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Does the BP oil spill change your opinion about offshore drilling?

 

 

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If anything this further confirms that we need to explore more land based drilling options AND better our alternative fuels like electric and bio-diesel.

Submitted by kinghq1 : May 20, 2010 3:55pm

This oil spill occured because the safety technicians and government regulators were overly lax in their equipment inspections! We can not and should not let this stop our oil exploration in the gulf (or any where else!).When spills like this occure we need to hold the person(s) responsible for it (sometimes these spills occure because of a person (or person's) criminal neglect or intentional act - these people need to be sent to jail for environmental terrorism!

Submitted by mmcgregor : May 20, 2010 4:38pm

If we don't drill off our own shore then China and others will. China just signed a deal with Nigeria and Brazil for oil. They also gave Chavez in Venezuela billions for an oil deal.

Submitted by Scor19 : May 20, 2010 4:40pm

What more do we need to sacrifice in order to continue over-using carbon based fuels? If an accident or stupid human error can cause this much damage, imagine what would happen if terrorists decided to attack us by blowing oil rigs? How vulnerable should we become in the name of freedom of the roads?

Submitted by gnesdahl : May 20, 2010 5:51pm

What we forget is that the oil spill is caused by a rig built by a foreign oil company. It ocurred off of OUR shores. Who "was" the inspection team ??? As for land based rigs...what about the "great" oil find from the Rockies East to the Dakotas and the Arctic/Alaska fields that would provide oil for another hundred years or more. Is the policy to wait for the Mideast fields "dry-up" and then we can be a major provider???

As for bio & alternative fuels...duh...it's already here...but why aren't we using them ??? What about the 1976 "mandate" by Congress to the auto industry to produce more fuel effecient cars with target mpgs set for future decades??? Hydrogen patents that "work" but the industry "won't" use them or they buy the patents ??? "They" make corn sound new but it becam popular back in the 70's and has been in our fuel ever since ???

All this is true and part of our history..but oh...I forgot...we don't know about history because it is constantly being re-written

Submitted by LightOwl : May 22, 2010 11:18am

There should be another option in the answers,"no it hasn't changed my opinion"! I never did like off shore drilling for oil because of what just happened. People have to do their jobs to keep everything safe then it would be okay. It's true we need to reduce or eliminate our dependency on foreign oil. We need to do it with more than oil. We need to stop being afraid of neclear power. France gets 80% of their energy from neclear. We need to use air, neclear, and oil. We need to find out how to cleanly use coal. We need to make the coal companies find a safe way to mine coal. It's a travesty to spill oil in any way causing the destruction of our envirenment and the wildlife of the ocean. Not to mention those who depend on making their living on the ocean. The cost of cleaning up the oil spill is going to be astronomical. I know a neclear disaster would be astronomical in the lose if lives, but we have to learn how to do it safely. France has learned. Why can't we learn from them?

Submitted by tutone1 : May 23, 2010 6:03pm

There should be another option in the answers,"no it hasn't changed my opinion"! I never did like off shore drilling for oil because of what just happened. People have to do their jobs to keep everything safe then it would be okay. It's true we need to reduce or eliminate our dependency on foreign oil. We need to do it with more than oil. We need to stop being afraid of neclear power. France gets 80% of their energy from neclear. We need to use air, neclear, and oil. We need to find out how to cleanly use coal. We need to make the coal companies find a safe way to mine coal. It's a travesty to spill oil in any way causing the destruction of our envirenment and the wildlife of the ocean. Not to mention those who depend on making their living on the ocean. The cost of cleaning up the oil spill is going to be astronomical. I know a neclear disaster would be astronomical in the lose if lives, but we have to learn how to do it safely. France has learned. Why can't we learn from them?

Submitted by tutone1 : May 23, 2010 6:04pm

Domestic vs. foreign oil is a complex balancing game of government and corporate politics. With regard to the current, ongoing tragedy off the Louisiana coast, a couple of points need to be further emphasized:
1. They don't know how to fix the problem, because such fixes have never been considered for the depth (5000+ Ft.), where this rig exists. How is this possible? It is tantamount to operating a nuclear power plant on top of a mountain, without a safety plan in case a failure arises. The only real difference being that this oil rig was out of sight and mind of the general public...until now.
2. The total BP liability expense to date for this tragedy, is a small fraction of one week of their corporate net profits. The impact to our environment and quality of life however is going to be staggering for many years to come. Full recovery, if possible, will take decades and ultimately make Katrina look like a summer shower by comparison.

How did WE allow this to happen???

Submitted by Big Dan : May 25, 2010 11:53am

As long as the rich oil executives tell the White House and Congress to tell us that it is safe, we will have plenty of these disasters with a "Sorry, we didn't think this could happen" excuse. As long as Washington caters to the rich, the rest of us will always pay for it. Do you think any of the rich ever vacation where these disasters take place? Why should they or Washington really care about the common people? The rich get richer and the middle class and poor get poorer.

Submitted by dcc08071 : May 26, 2010 2:52pm